Snow White: Death Becomes Her
by BlindHuntress
Summary: Be warned: This is a zombie-esque fic. I was listening to the soundtrack while I was travelling and came up with this. Any feedback is welcome, but I don't expect many to like this.


It was a miracle!

When she had emerged from the castle, appearing alive and well once again, the crowd had been stunned silent, and when she had spoken, they had rejoiced and rallied to her cause.

But they had not known…had no idea that everything was far from well within their Snow White.

Ravenna's magicks and the powers that be within Snow White had mixed with the cursed apple, and from it…well, let it just be said that what emerged from that castle was no longer completely human...or living.

_With fair blood it can be undone_…

But what exactly was undone?

The first sign of disaster revealed itself in her last battle with Ravenna. Upon reaching the throneroom, Ravenna's ice green eyes had widened and the queen of many horrors…well, she was _horrified. _

"What is _this_?" she asked, her voice full of terror and sharp to them men on either side of Snow White. "What happened? Who had interfered with my magicks?"

Yet her words, her fear were forgotten as Snow White moved forward and the Queen's army formed.

The Huntsman and the Prince did not hear or see much else after that…until the army fell to pieces and did not put themselves together again. And then…_the sounds._ The noises alone were monstrous. Looking at each other, no man knew what to think those sounds meant.

Moving as one, they followed the noises, the wet sounds, the breaking of bones. It was the Huntsman who stopped at the top of the stairs, his face carefully blank. His past of war and the hunt numbing the horror of the sight before him. The Prince froze, a foot still hovering in midair when his eyes found the scene.

She did not realize they were present until she was finished with her meal.

She ate ravenously, lily white fingers stained scarlet and her ebony main a storm about her head as her teeth tore into the heart held within her hands.

Ravenna's face was a mask of shock as she lay slumped upon her altar to the gold mirror she had worshipped.

When she had finished with the heart, hazel eyes sluggishly rose to peer at them through her hair, now entangled with drying blood, bits of viscera caught up in the lengths of it.

"So hungry," her voice was full of gravel, unnatural with yearning. "I've been so hungry since I've come back. _Nothing satisfies me_," she ended with a suffering moan, in a voice completely inhuman. With a lightning fast movement her hands dove into the gaping hole that she had rent in Ravenna and with a snap a bone was removed. Noisily, she began to suck the marrow from the bones.

For love of her, and fear of her, they said nothing.

And when she was sated, she appeared to still be the Snow White a people praised and loved.

Once judgement was passed on those who had went along with Ravenna's tyranny, the perpetrators were locked in the very tower that Snow White herself had once been kept in.

As William locked _her_ in, and the screams began, he slid down the door, his head in his hands. Waiting, waiting until her tentative knock would come from the other side of the door, and he would hold his breath, wondering as he opened the door to let her once again roam free.

They fed her criminals, and then animals when those ran out. However her hunger was not sated with beasts, and her hunger…it seemed to be growing. The Prince and the Huntsman would watch her silently, apprehensively as her gaze became drowsy, her skin feverish as old men would talk and advise her deaf ears. Hazel eyes positively vibrated underneath heavy lids, and her movements would become less coordinated, less intentional. With pleads for understanding of her fragile state, they would rush her from the room to find more food and lock her up within the tower again.

One day they lost her.

With panic in their hearts they searched the castle from top to bottom and scoured the city, but nowhere could she be found. Then the Huntsman disappeared as well, and William assumed he had found her trail, or at least hoped.

When he found her, she was eating at the remains of Ravenna's brother, already deep within the stages of putrefication. He hadn't realized her hunger was not limited to the living.

As the Huntsman watched, she seemed to take particular pleasure in breaking every single bone, her tongue snaking out to lick every last drip of marrow from the edges of broken bone. Back in the part of him that still considered her human, he wondered what the imp had done to her in life that had affected her so.

When she was finished, there wasn't much left, which was surprising, as not much had been there before.

Silently, she had let herself be led away and back to the castle.

But to the Dark Forest she repeatedly returned.

Sometimes she could just be found wandering its periphery, mumbling incoherently and sometimes the Huntsman could swear he saw beings take shape and answer her. Once he would swear to William he had seen the King, and then even the Dead Queen, and once it had been Ravenna. The latter had seemed to particularly upset her as Snow White let out banshee screams and began to tear out her hair. When he had moved to save her from herself, she had turned on him…but just a moment before her teeth had sunk into his neck, she had stopped herself and withdrew.

Now he no longer interfered, only led her back to the castle when she appeared to be finished.

Her words became less defined, until she lost her ability to speak altogether. But by the time that point had come, they read her looks so well, she would just have to jerkingly roll her head in their direction and they answered her call.

As fevers ever greater rolled through her at night, the Huntsman would stoically wet her face with a cloth and look into her beseeching eyes.

To help hold the kingdom together, they kept her secret. Yet the Huntsman wondered, was it just two men, unwilling to let her go? Was that begging for an end she was asking for in her eyes?

Then she herself began to decay before their eyes. The wounds on her head from tearing out her hair did not heal. When she opened her mouth, the smell of decay filled the air. So the Huntsman wove flowers into her hair and put salves onto self-inflicted wounds to cover up the smell. William had veils and highly conservative gowns made for her. Covering up as much graying skin as possible, veils to cover the half-alive gaze now permanently set onto her face. No longer could handmaidens be convinced all was still well, especially since a number of them had gone…missing. Now the two men labored over her before appearances before dignitaries. The story they spread was that her battle with Ravenna had left her frail, so frail, you understand…

And everyone knowing Ravenna's supernatural proclivity would nod sadly, and pat her limp hand, now covered in gloves.

The Huntsman would say "Not long now," and keep watch over her.

William could only hope it was true and do the same.

But whether they were protecting her from the world, or the world from her, they could no longer say.

"_I was looking for a breath of life, _

_A little touch of heavenly light_

_But all the choirs in my head_

_Sang 'No' " _–Florence + the Machine "Breath of Life"


End file.
